Chapter 9 #2
Blowing out a breath, I step out onto the curb and wait just long enough for the car to disappear down the block before slipping between two narrow buildings and cutting down a back alley that’ll lead me closer to the cafe.
I spent the last few days combing through Google satellite images, trying to find the best route back to the cafe without anyone catching on to what I was doing.
So far, I’d come up with a solid path that not only keeps me off the main road, but it puts me right back in that alleyway where Maksim’s people shoved Yulia and me into the back of that car.
By the time I get within a block of the cafe, my heart is already racing, knowing what I’m doing is probably stupid.
Beyond stupid, actually.
This is the kind of decision girls in horror movies make before they get their throats slit and are left to bleed out as the killer runs off to torture their next victim. Decisions like this would never grant me the position as the Final Girl, that’s for damn sure.
Hell, I’d be lucky to make it past the intro credits. Still, what else am I supposed to do at this point?
I round the corner and spot exactly what I’m looking for. The cafe.
Or what’s left of it, anyway.
The front is still sectioned off with haphazardly strewn police tape, the yellow plastic fluttering weakly in the breeze like a cautionary suggestion, though from here, it looks pretty half-assed.
A few of the windows have been boarded up with splintered plywood, and someone’s spray-painted a strange symbol across the wood.
I don’t recognize it, but it looks vaguely threatening, or maybe everything looks threatening when you’ve been traumatized.
What’s missing is any sign of police presence. No officers keeping the place secure, no crime scene units taking samples and logging the data. No vans, no bags of evidence being hauled out for testing.
Sure, it’s been a few days since the incident, but there’s no way the scene has been wrapped up this quickly.
If this had happened in the States, there would’ve been reporters standing out front, maybe even a memorial of some kind with flowers and candles left at the door to pay tribute to the fallen victims.
Looking at it now, it’s like someone has hit pause on the whole investigation. Or worse, pulled the plug completely.
Maksim’s reach, no doubt.
Bribery has to be one hell of a powerful tool when you’re a part of the Russian fucking Mob. I don’t know what I was expecting, but the emptiness around this part of the city feels… eerie.
I circle around to the back.
The alley behind the cafe is narrow and grimy, the pavement littered with flattened cardboard, a few discarded boxes and broken crates shoved against the brick wall. There’s a sour, musky rot in the air, like something spilled here a week ago and never got cleaned up.
I stop at the rear service door, staring at the rust-edged metal for a few long seconds while trying to work up the courage to actually reach out and grab it. My fingers twitch once at my side before I finally do it and test the handle, miraculously finding it unlocked.
Seriously?
That’s alarming. And beyond sloppy. Does securing crime scenes not matter when you’re a Mob front? Did no one think to bolt the place shut after an actual shootout? Either they’re too confident no one would dare come back snooping, or they just don’t care what got left behind in the aftermath.
Neither possibility makes me feel better.
I hesitate, palm still resting on the handle. My ears tune outward, straining past the hammering of my pulse. Both ends of the alley are still empty. Distant traffic hums along the main street, muted by the brick walls boxing me in.
It’s quiet back here. Completely abandoned.
And yet, every instinct is screaming at me to turn around. To leave it. To not step over that threshold and bind myself to whatever comes next.
Stupidly, my hand tightens and then I push the door open and slip inside.
The door creaks shut behind me with a final, metallic click, muffling the city outside, leaving me stranded in the suffocating silence within.
I feel like I’ve crossed a line I can’t undo, putting myself back in this dangerous situation with barely a plan pulled together.
The kitchen is a war zone and completely decimated like someone’s flipped the entire place upside down and then walked away without a second thought.
Shelves lie overturned, flour scattered like ash, glass peppered across the tile in a glittering mosaic.
The silence presses down, thick and unnatural.
No hum of refrigeration, no drip of a leaky faucet. Just the hollow echo of my breath in my ears.
Just beyond the chaos, near the swinging half-door that leads to the cafe, is a long, smeared trail.
Blood.
Dried now, rust-dark, its edges cracked where the streak dragged across the stile.
I follow it, letting it lead me out of the kitchen and into the actual cafe.
The pattern of the blood is messy, streaked in places and then coagulating in others.
Almost like someone was struggling to drag the body across the floor as it was spilling out, leaving the grotesque memory of their final moments behind with every drag mark.
My eyes dart over to where the trail ends, finding a large slumped over lump covered with a thin sheet of blue plastic. I cover my mouth with the back of my hand, swallowing down the bile clawing at my throat.
Is that…?
Oh my God.
What the hell am I doing here?
Seriously, what did I think I was going to find?
A friendly barista hiding in the pantry, hands raised, ready to confess to every illegal deal that’s ever passed through these walls?
A stray bullet stamped with a monogrammed message pointing directly at Maksim and Sergei like some kind of smoking gun?
I must be out of my goddamn mind to think this was ever a good idea. Nearly hyperventilating, I spin on my heel to head back for the door I came through, every nerve buzzing with regret, already cursing myself for being stupid enough to walk into this graveyard of chaos—
And slam hard into something solid. Something warm and breathing.
Someone.
The impact jolts through me. I freeze, my hand splayed instinctively against the broad plane of a chest that’s far too steady for being in a place like this surrounded by evidence of a fight ending in the worst way. Slowly—because any sudden move feels like a death wish—I tilt my head up.
Straight into Maksim’s eyes.
“You really have a habit of being where you shouldn’t be, Milaya,” he says calmly.
Oh my God, I’m so dead.
My mouth opens, but no words come out. My brain is screaming at me to say something, anything, but all I manage is a strangled half-breath.
“I–I didn’t… know anyone would be here.”
“Clearly.”
His gaze shifts past me, sweeping over the wreckage of the kitchen and out toward the main lobby of the cafe where I was just standing, cataloging every overturned chair and table, every glittering shard of glass that still litters the floor.
His eyes pause, lingering on the dark, dried swath across the tile.
He doesn’t flinch, hardly even blinks at it, clearly unfazed by the macabre sight like it’s just another day to him.
Hell, maybe it is considering he’s part of the fucking Mob.
This kind of thing probably doesn’t even register on his radar anymore.
His focus snaps back to me, pinning me in place. “Looking for something in particular, Ivy?”
The sound of my name on his lips makes my stomach dip. It’s too casual, too personal. Like we’re old friends meeting over drinks, not two people standing in the middle of a goddamn crime scene.
I swallow against the dryness in my throat. My hand moves before I even realize it, fingers brushing the edge of the strap slung across my body, slipping lower. It’s instinct, or maybe stupidity. At this point, I’m not sure there’s a difference between the two anymore.
Maksim’s eyes track the motion, watching the movement without a single shift in posture, like a predator watching a smaller animal twitch in the grass as it lay dying at its feet.
He doesn’t bother stopping me because he doesn’t need to.
Even if I had a gun tucked in my bag, I wouldn’t stand a chance defending myself against someone like him.
I doubt he thinks I’m stupid enough to pull one on him anyway, even out of desperation. If I did try something out of desperation, he’d have me face-down, disarmed, and bleeding out before I even found the safety.
While I don’t have a weapon, I do have my phone with the recording app ready to go the moment I click the side button a few times.
It’s pathetic, really, the way I’m banking on it being my smoking gun.
Some tiny little insurance policy that might catch him saying something I could use to send to Miss Dori to get me out of this contract with my money.
Maybe even over to the police to actually pay retribution for the lives lost during the shootout.
“What do you have there?” he asks, nodding to my bag.
“Nothing,” I say far too quickly.
His brows rise, just slightly, one dark arch of amusement.
It’s the look a professor gives a student who didn’t bother showing up to class and then tries to bullshit their way through the final exam. That quiet, patient cruelty of someone who enjoys watching me squirm because he already knows how the story ends.
“Try again.”
“Just my phone.” Fuck, I really need to get out of here. “I came back because I dropped it when we were leaving. That’s all.”
His mouth curls, not into a smile but into something worse. A humorless smirk that doesn’t touch his eyes. “You really expect me to believe that?”
No. No, I don’t. But I’m running out of lies to tell him in order to buy myself time that I’ve already clearly run out of.
So, instead of continuing this pathetic game where I pretend I still have the upper hand while we both know that’s the furthest thing from the truth, I grip the strap of my bag tighter. The cord digs into my palm, grounding me for one last second before I do something incredibly, impossibly stupid.
I bolt.
The move is desperate and impulsive. My shoes scrape against the floor, slipping over bits of broken glass I hadn’t seen until they’re slicing through the rubber soles and nearly sending me sprawling.
I catch myself on the counter and push forward, my eyes locking on the exit ten, maybe fewer, feet away.
I get maybe three steps before a hand closes around my arm like a clamp of steel and yanks me back.
Hard.
“Wait!” I choke out, but I barely get the word out before my body collides with his.
He spins me effortlessly, like I weigh nothing, and suddenly, my back slams into the wall.
My bag crashes into my hip and swings wildly before falling off my arm.
One of his hands grabs my wrist and pins it above my head, fingers curled tightly around bone.
His other arm braces behind my head, forearm against the wall, caging me in.
I freeze.
Every instinct in my body screams to move, to fight or kick or scratch him until he bleeds, but there’s nowhere to go. I’m locked down tight beneath him, caught in the space between the wall and something infinitely more dangerous.
He’s so close, I can smell the leather of his coat and the faint metallic tang of gun residue that clings to his skin.
My breath comes in fast, panicked bursts.
“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” he murmurs.
I flinch. My heart is pounding so hard, I’m half-convinced it’s going to rip through my ribcage and land in a twitching heap at his feet.
“I didn’t… I wasn’t—” But I can’t finish the sentence.
His eyes, dark and merciless, bore into mine. He leans in, just a fraction, but it’s enough to steal what little air was left between us. “I’m going to ask you this one time. What were you really doing here?”